Greetings from South Central Alaska and the fledgling Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies. For those interested, please consider joining us for our opening ceremony on 11 August 2022...details are below.
Upfront, please accept my sincerest apologize for the extended time off the net. There are several reasons for this…the first being right after the successful early May Arctic Symposium 2022, I had a bit of a medical challenge. Am much better now, but the experience did take a bit of a toll for a couple of weeks. The other reasons are generally oriented to being very busy in bringing aboard staff and building out our plans and programs. The below is a quick highlight of these endeavors.
Progress on the POAM, TSC reaching IOC on 1 July 2022. We are happy to announce the TSC achieved Initial Operating Capacity, (IOC) as defined by the 9 February 2022 Pentagon approved Plans, Objectives and Milestones (POAM). Due to the diligence and perseverance fellow TSC teammates (and our ACT-1 Mission Partners) and the great support from OSD Policy (DASD Arctic & Global Resilience and DASD Global Partnerships), Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCSA) and U.S. Northern Command, the TSC achieved IOC on 1 July 2022 and are headlong away on the path to achieving full operational capacity by 1 July 2023.
Thanks for AAS22 Participation. We do thank all who participated in the 2-6 May 2022 Arctic Symposium…with 280 registered in person and 180 virtual participants with 90+ speakers (including Commander USNORTHCOM & USSTRATCOM, as well distinguished Arctic Indigenous and Allied defense experts) via a myriad of activities, this event was a remarkable session focused on developing landscape of Arctic Security. As regards the AAS22 Report, the release is coming soon. Please know the Symposium Report is due to be signed out by Commander, Alaskan Command in the near term. We will send and post pronto as soon as we are in receipt.
TSC ARSOC. Since Arctic Symposium 2022 (AAS22), the TSC has conducted 2 additional full Arctic Regional Security Orientation Courses, as well as initiating action in the next series of courses to be instructed at the Center over the next several months. We now have more than 225 graduated participants from our education programs and more to follow in the coming weeks.
TSC transitioning to in-person activities. Over the past 3 months, we have recently supported a growing number of "in person" efforts to include Canada’s Arctic Security Working Group, the DSCA 50th Anniversary of celebration of U.S. Defense security cooperation, the 75th Anniversary conference of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory, staff synchronization talks at the Pentagon and HQ USNORTHCOM. Meanwhile, we continue to support a number of on-line conferences and seminars, (to include the May 2022 DoD Arctic S&T Synchronization Conference) but we are well on the way to transition back from mostly on-line to mostly in person activities. We do hope this trend back to life in "3 dimensions" will continue, while we maintain what we have learned from COVID19 as regards to on-line collaboration.
Filling TSC positions. We have been busily working on personnel hires and have successfully achieved a number of DoD civilian and ACT-I mission partner placements. We anticipate filling approximately 25 DoD personnel fills before the end of Calendar Year 2022. There are coming career opportunities with the Center…please stay tuned to these openings via USA Jobs.
TSC Website release. While we are underway in further refinement/updates of the Center’s brand new website, we do want to release this new TSC portal to support collaboration across the Arctic practitioner community, as it has now sufficiently framed the major portions of our center’s program and activities. Please see: http://tedstevensarcticcenter.org/ Please check back as it will be updated over the coming weeks and months.
Virtual Invitation to view the TSC Opening Ceremony. For folks outside of the Anchorage area, please join us virtually on 9 AM Alaska/1 PM Eastern on Thursday, 11 August 2022, via Zoom.gov for our opening ceremony. The Stevens Center will host a formal ribbon cutting in the future following reaching Full Operational Capacity and fully established in our enduring facility. However this “soft opening” of the Center on this coming Thursday, is provided for all interested to listen and learn from our guest speakers about their expectations and charges for this new DoD Regional Center for the Arctic.